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The Maid’s Tragedy was probably written around 1610-11,
but not printed until 1619. Fuller in The Worthies of
England records an anecdote about the playwrights meeting in a
tavern to draft a tragedy in which Fletcher “undertook to kill the
King therein”. The possibility that it was produced in the
aftermath of the assassination of Henry IV of France in 1610, which
increased the fears of James I for his own personal safety, is
considerable, and adds to the play’s political implications. Recent
critics are now willing to regard it as a politically serious play
about absolutism and tyranny, possibly mildly censored in its first
quarto, and Finkelpearl considers it “one of the greatest mysteries
of Jacobean …

Citation:
Clark, Sandra. "The Maid's Tragedy". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 October 2003
[https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=259, accessed 18 February 2018.]

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259The Maid's Tragedy3Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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